Chapter 222: Epilogue - Aston's Work Journal (2) Even when I helped Mr. Jinseo run the bunsik business, we traveled to many places, but the place where we mainly sold food was in front of Dwarf Town near Falstead Castle.
However, after Mr. Jinseo left, there were more times when I drove the food truck and did business all over the continent.
Because of that, I ended up stopping by Falstead Castle again after three months.
When I saw Falstead Castle, where I had lived the whole time after Father became the lord of the castle, it felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Mr. Jinseo often used to say that the Francia Continent, where he did business, felt more like home to him than Korea did.
At the time, I simply took it in stride, but after wandering around driving the food truck in Mr. Jinseo's place, I too found that even Falstead Castle, which had once felt so familiar, now felt strange to me.
Now that I thought about it, perhaps what Mr. Jinseo meant was that the place where there were customers happily eating his food was no different from home.
That was why I thought Mr. Jinseo would continue staying on the Francia Continent, which was no different from a second home to him.
But Mr. Jinseo bid us farewell far earlier than I had expected.
Naturally, there were many people who regretted his choice, and among them, Father was one of those who felt the emptiness of his absence most keenly.
When he parted with Jinseo, he seemed to have held himself together well, but for me, who had seen him several times sadly boiling a packet of ramen and eating it alone, it did not feel like someone else's story.
Father said that each time one of the packet ramens and cup ramens he had received as a final gift from Mr. Jinseo disappeared, it felt as though he was gradually forgetting Jinseo.
Just like Father, I too only grew more regretful whenever the Korean ingredients Mr. Jinseo had left behind dwindled.
I was trying to use them sparingly whenever possible, but the day would definitely come when they would all run out.
Until that day came, there was only one thing I could do.
I could only keep striving to get closer to the taste of the bunsik Mr. Jinseo had made.
Clatter, clatter.
Along with the brisk sound of horses' hooves, dozens of wagons raced forward, kicking up clouds of sand.
The horses pulling wagons from all over the Doren Kingdom were headed toward only one place: Falstead Castle, the Doren Kingdom's greatest tourist destination, which had risen to become the "holy land" of bunsik.
The wagons, made with reference to the Korean military truck called the two-and-a-half-ton truck that Jinseo had described, carried people who were looking forward to touring Falstead Castle, where bunsik and all kinds of sights and amusements awaited them.
Among them, those who had already visited Falstead Castle several times paid no attention to the scenery outside, which they had seen over and over, and instead listened to the song flowing from inside the wagon.
"The wagon heading to Falstead Castle carries me along∼♪ To the place where warm bunsik awaits∼♬-"
One of the songs Julien had liked most from the record Jinseo had gifted him, rewritten with new lyrics and sung by him, flowed out through a Mana Phonograph created with dwarf technology and magic.
Of course, simply playing a song was not enough, since there were many inconveniences to enjoying music inside a wagon, so countermeasures were needed.
So, the inside of the wagons carrying passengers was soundproofed with magic so outside noise could not be heard, and technology introduced from the food truck was used to reduce the shaking as much as possible.
Thanks to that, those who had already visited Falstead Castle many times were able to spend the long trip without boredom while riding in the wagon.
"We've arrived! Everyone, enjoy your meal!"
As soon as the coachman stopped the wagon, the passengers hurriedly jumped out and ran toward the bunsik street inside Dwarf Town.
Then they raised their voices, trying to place their orders before anyone else.
"Hm, so this is bunsik made at the original home of bunsik."
"It's definitely different from the bunsik sold near my home. It's a taste worth coming all this way for."
"It's still delicious, but... it's different."
Most of the tourists were satisfied with the food on bunsik street, but those who had come back to Falstead Castle for the first time in a long while since Jinseo left the Francia Continent tilted their heads and reacted with subtle reservations.
With only the ingredients grown in the greenhouses of Elven Forest, it was still impossible to perfectly replace all Korean ingredients.
For that reason, some bunsik still needed more time before they could get close to the original taste Jinseo used to make.
Among them, the bunsik that longtime customers found the most different was ramen.
Having anticipated such a case, Jinseo had gifted Oswald, who especially loved ramen, a large supply of various kinds of ramen.
But over the course of two years, Oswald had eaten one packet a day and handed them out as gifts to people around him, so that enormous stock had nearly run dry before he knew it.
The packet ramen had already all been eaten a month ago, and only two cup ramens remained.
So Oswald decided to put into practice the method Jinseo had told him was the most delicious way to eat ramen.
"Huff, huff..."
Oswald's entire body was drenched in sweat as he marched across the barren open land far from Falstead Castle.
The distance he had traveled so far was nearly twenty kilometers.
As time passed, the backpack on his back felt heavier and heavier, and even taking one more step forward made both his legs tremble.
But because it was a process he absolutely had to go through in order to eat ramen in the most delicious way, he gritted his teeth and did not stop advancing.
"I'm almost there now..."
When Oswald spotted his guards, Dean and Austin, waiting in advance at the destination, he squeezed out the last of his strength and started running.
"I-I'm here. Huff, huff..."
After finishing his twenty-kilometer solo march, Oswald dropped down on the spot and pulled off his helmet.
Steam rose from his head, and with the sudden wave of fatigue crashing over him, he felt like flopping over and falling fast asleep right there.
But instinctively sensing that this was the ideal state for eating ramen as deliciously as possible, Oswald shook off the temptation of sleep and tore open the cup ramen packaging.
Then he carefully poured the boiling water from the pot over the campfire into the cup ramen.
After waiting through the unbearably long three minutes in nervous anticipation, he opened the lid of the cup ramen and lifted the well-cooked noodles with his wooden chopsticks.
Slurp.
"O-oh..."
A gasp of admiration escaped Oswald's lips on its own.
Even after just one bite, it was completely different from any ramen he had eaten before.
Slurp, slurp.
Even he, who prided himself on having eaten and enjoyed more ramen than anyone else on the Francia Continent, was experiencing this body-soaking taste for the first time.
If you follow the method I told you, you will surely be able to eat ramen in the most delicious way possible. But... there is a way to make it taste even better than that.
But Oswald was not satisfied and moved on to the next stage.
The trainees, starving after a grueling march, were happy with cup ramen alone. But unlike us, the drill instructors mixed cold rice into the leftover ramen broth and enjoyed it with kimchi. I couldn't have envied that sight more.
The cold rice he had always mixed in after eating ramen now tasted even more special to his utterly exhausted body.
And the taste of kimchi, which he only truly realized after Jinseo had left.
With both of those in his mouth at the same time, Oswald's face looked happier than ever before.
"Yes, this was it. This is the true taste of ramen..."
After cleanly finishing the cup ramen without leaving behind a single drop of broth or a single bit of garnish, Oswald looked down at his sweat-soaked body.
"It truly was a taste I could regret nothing about. But it is too much of a shame to enjoy it only once. In that case..."
Oswald said something to Dean and Austin, who were looking down at him, then silently waited for their reply.
With a face expecting agreement.
But the two large men simultaneously shook their heads.
Without even an inch of hesitation.
"No, is it really that strange to say I want to taste it one more time after marching with the knight order?"
Even now, I still cannot forget the memory of the first day I visited the Holy Land together with Mr. Jinseo.
The sight of street stalls lined up in rows, selling all kinds of stuffed breads I had never seen before in my life, was such a fresh shock.
It was because the unspoken rule that all bunsik had to be introduced through the food truck first had been broken.
And the other shocking thing was witnessing with my own eyes that the Holy Land sold a much greater variety of tteokbokki than the food truck did.
Earlier, after Mr. Jinseo had visited the Holy Land together with the Cardinal, I heard that Special Tteokbokki had been designated as a holy food, and honestly, I found it hard to believe.
But in reality, Special Tteokbokki was being sold to great acclaim, enough to captivate many of the clergy in the Holy Land.
That was how remarkable Mr. Jinseo's bunsik was, and even after he left, it settled in as food loved by many people all across the continent.
However, because bunsik began being made by the hands of people who had not received Mr. Jinseo's verification, a situation arose in which it drifted far too far away from the original taste.
Since not every chef on the continent could receive Mr. Jinseo's teachings the way I had, that was also unavoidable.
But at the very least, Special Tteokbokki, which had been designated a holy food, had to preserve the original taste as much as possible in light of its symbolism.
For that reason, I tried to lend a hand in properly recreating Special Tteokbokki, but the Heirem Order said they could not place such a great burden on me and stepped forward, saying they would solve it on their own.
I only hope it will be resolved well.
Before it is a holy food, Special Tteokbokki is still a food that Mr. Jinseo spread, so I want it to be placed properly on everyone's tables with the correct taste.
"Hm..."
Veronica, the former inquisitor, looked down at the Special Tteokbokki on the table with a grave expression.
"As expected... yes, it is as I thought."
After taking another bite of the Special Tteokbokki, she frowned and shook her head.
The strong sense of discord she had felt from the first bite only grew stronger, leaving behind an inescapable heaviness in her mouth.
"Does Your Highness share the same opinion?"
"I do not know tteokbokki as well as Lady Veronica does, but I can confidently say this is not right."
Princess Angelica of the centaur race wiped her lips with a sheet of tissue paper while making a face that plainly said this was not it.
It had already been three years since Pope Kaal X designated Special Tteokbokki as a holy food.
By now, Special Tteokbokki had spread all across the Francia Continent to the point that it had become mandatory for clergy to eat it once a week.
However, because churches had begun making the holy food on their own, unverified tteokbokki started being cooked in all kinds of haphazard ways, and in dioceses with no proper chef, Special Tteokbokki had even degenerated into a monstrous dish that was nothing but spicy and had no taste at all.
Unable to keep watching this situation, the Heirem Order created a position to spread the proper holy food, and the very first person to take that role was Veronica.
And Princess Angelica and her subordinates accompanied Veronica.
Because they had to visit every Heirem church across the continent and complete the inspection of Special Tteokbokki as quickly as possible, the help of centaurs, who could move quickly on four legs, was desperately needed.
Princess Angelica, who had come to the Francia Continent to study abroad, gladly accepted the Heirem Order's proposal because she wanted to travel to more places and learn more.
Thus, after traveling all across the continent to inspect Special Tteokbokki, they tasted the Special Tteokbokki at the fifteenth church they had visited and could not hide their disappointment.
"The charm of tteokbokki lies in its spicy-sweet balance, but this is far too sweet."
"We had no choice, since we were trying to suppress the spiciness..."
The parish priest who had served the Special Tteokbokki made excuses, but Veronica's tongue could not tolerate sweetness that completely smothered the spiciness.
"Even so, there are lines that must be upheld. This tteokbokki is heresy. It cannot be recognized as a holy food."
"That cannot be..."
The parish priest dropped to his knees in despair before the Special Tteokbokki that had been judged heretical.
"Brother Huri, let me ask you something. Have you served this Special Tteokbokki to the brothers and sisters of the Order?"
"N-no, I have not. This was only something I came up with for ordinary believers who are bad at eating spicy food."
"Ah... then the story changes. The suffering brought by spiciness is a hardship meant for the brothers and sisters of the Order. However, such hardship cannot be forced upon ordinary believers as well. This is a mistaken flavor born from Brother Huri's kindness. Please forgive my misunderstanding."
"T-thank goodness!"
"That said, this flavor still cannot be served to ordinary believers either, so I shall recreate a non-spicy version of tteokbokki here on the spot, in another form."
"What? There is such a tteokbokki as well?"
Rather than answering the parish priest with words, Veronica responded by picking up the pot strapped to her back.
"Hurry and prepare for Lady Veronica's cooking!"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
The moment Angelica gave the order, her subordinates quickly lit a campfire and began pulling out cooking utensils and ingredients.
A little later, Veronica skillfully made a black tteokbokki and set it before the parish priest.
"It isn't spicy... it has a savory taste! This is my first time trying such a tteokbokki!"
"This is Soy Sauce Tteokbokki, a tteokbokki with a completely different character from the usual kind. And there is one more kind of tteokbokki."
A fantastical tteokbokki that Jinseo had shown only once, for customers who could not eat tteokbokki because of the spiciness, and after he left, no one had been able to recreate it.
However, after Rainfolt and the magicians of the Doren Mage Tower, along with the chefs of the bunsik wagons, put their heads together and researched it, it was born once again.
"T-this is..."
Faced with tteokbokki covered in a sauce even blacker and deeper than Soy Sauce Tteokbokki, the parish priest could not easily extend his fork.
"It may look difficult to eat at first glance, but it tastes quite good. This should... do."
Veronica plated the finished tteokbokki and set it down.
"It is Jajang Tteokbokki."
Leaving behind the position of inquisitor and gaining the new title of Holy Food Missionary, Veronica took the lead in showing many people a new kind of joy, holding not a giant hammer and a holy book, but a large ladle and a book filled with cooking recipes.
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